I’ve fucking got it. This is 2016, right? Sisters are doing it for themselves. Why not a lady protagonist? Women are empathetic and nonthreatening and totally cool. Everyone is chill with ladies. That’s why phone robots all have feminine voices. True story. Why would you just kill a woman for no reason? She’s not going to hurt you. This time no one is going to hurt anybody.
Naomi walks into Apollonia’s private office just before 5:00. It is a cramped and dingy room, lit by a single fluorescent bulb and smelling strongly of mildew. Without greeting or warning, she drops a thick yellow binder down on Apollonia’s desk.
“Read this,” she says.
The binder is marked A.M.A.R.I.L.L.I.A. PROJECT. It is filled with photographs, exotic diagrams, and pages and pages of exhaustively researched reports. Apollonia proceeds slowly, taking in each and every fact printed on the pages, running them over in her mind and allowing them to settle. She feels a sinking sensation in her stomach as she journeys deeper and deeper into the text.
“Dear God,” she whispers. “Can this be true?”
“Yes,” says Naomi.
“This is absolutely disgusting. How could they do something like this? How could they sell us out to aliens?”
“They don’t care about our world. Not anymore.”
“What can we do?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I brought this to you.”
Apollonia opens one of her drawers, retrieving two shot glasses and a bottle of whiskey. She pours a double and pushes it toward Naomi.
“Have some. It will calm your nerves.”
Naomi throws the glass to the ground, shattering it.
“This is no time to drink! We’ve got to do something!”
Apollonia takes her shot. “We can’t do anything if we can’t keep our cool.”
“You want me to be cool? The department would have my head if they even knew I am talking to you.”
“My head’s on the line too. I might be a vice president here, but they’d kill me as quickly as a break-room cockroach.”
“So what do we do? I came to you because I have the utmost respect for your work with the company.”
“We go to the press. It might cost us our lives, but at least the truth will be out there.”
“Should we try to rescue the girl?”
“No. First we get the truth out. I’ll handle this. Delete any digital copies of these files and meet me tonight at the Port Royale.”
“Fine.”
“Remember. Anyone you know could be one of them. Use caution.”
Naomi nods and exits.
Apollonia takes another double shot of whiskey as she continues to read the binder. How could this happen? She had never trusted the powers that be, but how could they be doing this? How could they be killing people with impunity? The notes on the files indicate that it is in the name of safety and the greater good, but whose safety are they really talking about? Man or monster?
Apollonia leaves at 7:00, as she does every evening. She hides the pages of the binder in her purse. She puts on a cheerful face, smiling at coworkers and greeting the support staff as she passes. She takes the elevator down from her floor to the lobby, then the stairs to the parking garage. She makes sure no one is following her as she walks down the corridors of the unlit parking garage, turning her head every few moments to get a full view of her surroundings. She sees her car and breathes a sigh of relief. She is almost out.
“Hey there.”
She turns to see a young man in a suit. He is at least six feet tall and aggressively muscled. He smiles brightly and broadly at Apollonia, as if trying to hide something.
“Hello, Patrick,” she says.
“Where ya headed in such a hurry?”
“Just going home.”
“Home, huh? I remember home.”
He laughs. She joins him.
“Long hours, huh? I feel for you.”
He sticks out his finger at her purse. She clutches it closer.
“Hey. Is that new? I think my girlfriend pointed that purse out at the store. I’m sure it was that one.”
“I’ve had this thing forever.”
“Do you mind if I see it? I just want to know if it’s well made.”
Apollonia swallows. “I’d really prefer it if you didn’t.”
The smile leaves his face, and his eyes begin to narrow. Apollonia takes a step back. She has been trained in self-defense, but this man has at least one hundred pounds on her and also might be an alien. She begins to slowly, subtly shift into a combat stance. If she times it right, she might be able to stun him long enough for her to escape. She just has to find the right moment. She waits. And waits. And waits.
Finally he chuckles. “You’re right. That was a weird question. I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately. Sorry. I’ll see you later.”
Apollonia gets into her car. On the way to the Port Royale, she is pulled over by the man in the police uniform. While patting her down for drugs, he slips his fingers into her underwear. She tries to pull his hands away, prompting him to use force to stop her from resisting arrest. Her head is slammed many times against the sidewalk. She dies.
She. Didn’t. Do. Anything. And even if she did do something, killing is not the answer. That’s it. I’m not playing anymore. I can quit at any time. No one can stop me. Look, I’ll do it now. Boom. I just quit for two days. Boom. That was two weeks. Boom. Now I have to change all the dates to 2016. What’s the point of writing this thing? What’s the point of writing anything? I just wanted to tell a cool story. That’s it. No murders. No deaths. Remember? It was just a love story.
I once read that people get more into love stories and poems in times of political strife and violence. What better way to assert meaning in the face of meaninglessness than by celebrating the connection between human beings? Our relationship with the state, the culture, the world, these are just petals in the winds compared to the love that flows between us. Fuck politics. I set out to do a love story, so I’m doing a love story. Plus I’ve got a plan. So far the Apollos have all died while messing around outside. The solution isn’t relatability at all. It’s so much simpler than that: transit. It doesn’t matter if the guy can’t sympathize with Apollo if he can’t find him. There are tons of great stories set in one place. I’ll just do one of those.
Apollo and Naomi sit alone on the couch by the window, the dusty brown one held together with tape and Band-Aids, quiet, listening to the rain and the night, watching the play of wind and glow on the raindrops outside, refracted lamplight and neon diffusing into glitter in the dark. His head rests on her lap, which is soft and warm and comfortingly “laplike,” which is to say that it possesses the qualities of the Platonic lap in quantities nearing excess, qualities which are difficult to articulate, neotenous comforts and chthonic ecstasies of a sublime/cliched nature, intimacy rendered in thigh meat and belly warmth. Her left hand is on his shoulder, just so, and her right is on his chest, and he takes note of the sensation of her fingers as his chest expands and contracts, and it is pleasant. He takes a breath, sweet and slow. There is a little sadness, because this moment will wilt and wither like all moments, and he does not want it to, more than anything.
“Remember this,” he says.
“What?”
“I would like it if you would remember this. Tonight. Or at least this part.”